Last week I had a quick look at some custom guitar hero controllers as well as the YAMAHA EZAG stringless guitar, a “guitar” that falls half way in between a stringless controller and a learning tool with l.e.d.’s  to illustrate where you place your fingers upon the neck.

Guitar Rising is a music video game where the player plays a real guitar as cued by the game’s visuals. Following rock music sequences and streaming notes, players play guitar melodies and rhythms. Beginner difficulty levels are designed for non-guitar players and hard difficulties will challenge experienced guitarists.

The great news is Guitar Rising from Game Tank allows you to play a real guitar in a game that combines the Guitar Hero format with guitar tablature. There are six lines on the screen that represent the six strings just like the neck of your guitar. The color-coordinated notes have been replaced with numbers that tell you which fret to finger.

So a number seven moving across the third line or string from the top, means you’ll play a D note on your 3rd string. Guitar players who have spent any time with standard tablature will find this to be like second nature. If you haven’t then this game will help you move away from the stringless controller format into the territory of REAL guitar playing whilst still having fun.

At this point, GameTank is still unsure whether to implement full chords and polyphony in the final game (that is playing more than one note at a time) – right now the game recognizes notes only one-at-a-time basis and neither can it recognise slides, bends, rakes, triplets, diads etcetera.

This could develop into a really useful and versatile learning tool for those of you who enjoy the Guitar hero format but want to move above and beyond the unrealistic paddle switch clicking of the guitar hero controllers.

You will need a USB interface for your guitar such as the Line 6 guitar port – click here to find out more!

So if it’s time to ditch that amateurish controller toy guitar machine then here is the suggested method, but make sure you listen to Pet Sounds first; and why not?

Cheers,

Jake Edwards